Review  Perfect Dark
- Combat Simulator Customization
- By Mike Schneider,
-by Andrew Weatherton
, 6.30.00
Since
day one, I’ve wondered just how many hundreds of hours I’ve spent engulfed
in Goldeneye’s multiplayer, or how many times I had sent friends to their
untimely demise. As we all know though, Goldeneye left my ego and I shrouded
in mystery, since there was no way I could ever actually find out any of my
desires. With Perfect Dark, all the mystery is gone, and my ego is able to
rejoice. With a memory pak, I can save all my stats forever, provided the
memory pak doesn’t somehow malfunction from overexposure to excess heat.
With this, as expected, comes the problem of people creating malicious
statistics. Any old Joe has the potential to cheat to their statistic’s
content, leaving you to wonder how real anyone’s statistics actually are.
But for the honest gamers out there, the option of saving your stats is a nice
touch to an already impeccable list of options.
Although
we may have lost face-mapping from Perfect Dark, Rare has made this an
afterthought with the inclusion of a superb character selection process.
Rather than just give you a whole slew of selectable peoples like in Goldeneye,
they gave us that, while allowing you to mix and match the heads and bodies to
your choosing. Rare included 75 different heads and 40 bodies, topping
Arby’s ‘mix and match’ deal by quite a few… Goldeneye basically had 64
different characters available for multiplayer; by comparison, Perfect Dark
offers 3000 different possibilities. Plus, before starting a match, you have
the option of highlighting weapon and ammo pickups so they can be more easily
seen from a distance, as well as individual players or teams, for easier
recognizing. Or, before starting a match, you can assign names to not only
your character, but to teams as well.
Furthermore,
if you’re like me, you’ll find that some musical tunes are more up your
alley than others. Everyone has preferences. But with Perfect Dark, unlike
most other games, you can choose what selection(s) to battle to, or randomize
it, as well as multiple tunes being played in a match. There’s nothing more
sadistic than getting in an intense battle with fast paced music roaring in
the background one second, then the song changing to a slow and steady piece
right as you get a kill on someone.
If the
amount of control you had over the game length in Goldeneye was compared to
Perfect Dark, then you could call Goldeneye a restrictive babysitter and
Perfect Dark a free loving Hippie. Obviously, in one of the aforementioned
games, you’re very limited in your game length options (ie. Choosing between
5, 10, or 20 minutes, or first to 5, 10, or 20 kills, or no limit), while the
other allows you all the freedom that any Hippie could possibly desire. If you
want a game that is 7 minutes long, or the first to 9 kills, whichever comes
first, you can do that. If you want a match set to exactly 100 kills,
regardless of how long it takes, that can be done. There almost is no limit to
the possibilities of game length, and we’re glad that it is this way. The
only minor complaint out there is that Perfect Dark does not feature a
“first to XX amount of kills” option, where as Goldeneye had a “you only
live twice” mode. Although I didn’t commonly play “you only live
twice” in Goldeneye, it wouldn’t have hurt at all to have also been given
the opportunity to set limits based on the number of deaths.
“I
want Rockets!” “No, we must play with automatics!” “How about
pistols?” Ah yes, the days of Goldeneye when everyone had their own favorite
individual weapons, that inevitably also belonged to different weapons
groupings, meaning someone was bound to be upset. With Perfect Dark, this
problem is alleviated, because if you don’t want to use any of the weapons
groupings, you can completely customize which six weapons are going to be used
in a match.
Finally,
more props go out to Rare for the “lock” option. With this, you can allow
one person to take control of determining the level, weapons, etc. of the
match, rather than the default setting of everyone being able to modify stuff.
You can allow it to randomly choose a person, assign it to a particular
person, the last winner, or last loser. We’ve found that the matches get a
more competitive flavor by setting it to “last winner.”
I could
keep going on about the many, many different ways that Perfect Dark offers
complete control over multiplayer matches; before, during, and after, but the
point has been proven. It’s these options that add the suave slickness to
Perfect Dark.
Continue on to the beginning of the end, it's Mike's
Final Impressions on page 16.
|
|
|
.gif)
